In the seventh conversation edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war).So it would seem the Islamists' objection is to the historical record.... he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words:
Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death....
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: "For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality." Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice idolatry.
Islamists want no historic record. No civilization.
Pope has been harshly critical of USA's WOT, and now maybe he'll see first hand how nuts these people are.
All Muslims want is "regime change" at the Vatican. That's all.
The Swiss Guard better go to the mattresses.
Obedience demanded by God (as opposed to faith and love that comes of free choice and indeed reason), is a form of tyranny.
And so I disagree with the Pope on this point: that each man is able to reason, to read scripture as much as he has the Holy Spirit for his guide.
I hope you'll pardon a thinly veiled conversion narrative from a poor Puritan.
Still, this Pope has read his Milton, which delights me.
And I would conclude by opining that he appears to have orchestrated this. The only way over this obstacle (other than war) is this forced dialogue. He's intellectually up to the task.